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Exposing J Street for its Radicalism
Dear Editor:
For many years The Jewish Voice, under the editorial leadership of Fern Sidman, has been practically alone in consistently featuring editorials and op-eds exposing J Street for the radical group that it truly is. Far too many Jewish news outlets have failed to speak out about the dangerous schemes that J Street advocates. Finally, though an editorial appeared last week in the DC-based Washington Jewish Week, and its sister papers in Baltimore and Philadelphia, that correctly challenged J Street for opposing the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
The April 8 editorial, “What Is J Street Thinking?”, was spot on and said “Iran is not a theoretical adversary. It is a regime that spent decades building the capacity — through missiles, proxies and nuclear ambition — to threaten Israel’s existence and destabilize the region in ways that implicate American interests.”. But the ongoing war with Iran is far from the only recent example of J Street opposing Israeli security policy. On February 26, the organization issued a statement backing congressional legislation that, in its own words, “places conditions on Israel’s ability to use American arms.” At a time of active conflict, such conditions could affect the IDF’s ability to protect innocent Israeli families.
Positions like these help explain J Street’s limited support within the American Jewish community. Its 2014 application to join the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations was decisively rejected, underscoring its place outside the communal mainstream—and why its views must be met with clear and vocal opposition just as The Jewish Voice has done for many years. Here’s hoping more Jewish newspapers object to J Street’s policies.
Sincerely,
Moshe Phillips
National Chairman
Americans For A Safe Israel
afsi.org
Puncturing a Myth About FDR
Dear Editor:
A new book about Jewish refugees during the Holocaust reminds us anew of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s abandonment of the Jews—and the disturbing efforts by some latter-day apologists to distort FDR’s record.
The book is The Wanderers, by Daniela Gerson, a professor of journalism at California State University–Northridge. She focuses on the Jewish residents of the Polish town of Zamosc, most of whom fled to the Soviet Union when the Nazis approached in September 1939. They were among the 300,00 Polish Jews who were admitted by the Soviets during 1939-1941.
That Soviet policy stands in stark contrast to the claim made by filmmaker Ken Burns, in his 2022 documentary, “The U.S. and the Holocaust,” that during the Roosevelt years, the United States “accepted more refugees than any other sovereign nation.”
Burns’s misrepresentation of the immigration numbers was just one of numerous distortions in his film that sought to portray FDR’s Holocaust record in a more favorable light.
The number of European Jewish refugees admitted to the US from 1933 to 1945 was about 200,000. (Burns uses the figure 225,000, but that’s because he included non-Jews who fled the Nazis for various reasons.)
Saying that the US “accepted more refugees than any other sovereign nation,” as Burns put it, is comparing apples to oranges—because countries that were much smaller, or much closer to European war zones, were obviously less able to admit immigrants than a huge country which was far removed from the front lines.
But that aside, even Burns’s basic numbers are all wrong, since the Soviets admitted some 300,000—50% more than the US—as Daniela Gerson’s new book reminds us.
Of course, entering the USSR had its own hazards, although that was more obvious in retrospect than it was to the Jews of Zamosc in 1939. As the Wall Street Journal’s reviewer noted, escaping to the Soviet Union “was a harrowing route that nevertheless afforded a significantly higher (though still grimly uncertain) chance of survival than Nazi-held territory.”
The Soviets, by the way, were not the only ones who took in more Jewish refugees than FDR. During 1933-1945, the British admitted more than 315,000 Jews to the United Kingdom and various territories it controlled.
Obviously, the admission of Jews to Britain and its territories does not change the cruel reality of England’s White Paper policy, which blocked most Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine at the very moment Jews were desperately seeking refuge.
Still, the numbers speak for themselves. They show that the apologists for FDR are simply wrong when they claim that the US record on Jewish refugees was better than that of any other country.
Sincerely
Prof. Rafael Medoff
‘Terrible’ Pope is a Nope for President
Dear Editor:
The Pope is clearly biased against Israel and America. He considers the war with Iran to be a ‘war of choice’.
America and Israel have the right and duty to fight those sworn to eliminate them and slaughter their people.
Iran instigated and perpetuates its war against the Infidels.
Here are some relevant dates.
In 1979, Iran attacked and occupied the U.S. embassy in Tehran – an act of war – taking diplomats hostage.
On March 17, 1992, Iran bombed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
On July 18, 1994, they blew up the AMIA (Jewish community center) killing 85 and wounding 300 Christians and Jews.
On Oct. 7, 2023 Palestinian terrorists, paid and controlled by Iran, ravaged southern Israel.
On Oct. 8, 2023, Hezbollah, another Iran proxy, attacked Israel from Lebanon.
Since Oct., 2023, Houthi rebels in Yemen have been attacking Israel.
On Oct. 1, 2024 Iran launched 200 ballistic missiles at Israel. Iran is still firing into Israel, using cluster bombs (a war crime).
Iran, Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen coordinated violence against Israel. Israel did not initiate any of these actions. It defended itself.
The U.N., dominated by 56 Islamic states, condemns America and Israel, rather than the radical, openly genocidal, theocrats in Iran for the death and destruction. Only America supports Israel and recognizes what a nuclear-armed Iran will inflict on the world.
Pope Leo IXV has succumbed to the forces of evil, just as PIUS XII did in WWII.
Sincerely
Len Bennett, author of ‘Unfinished Work’
Deerfield Beach, Fl
